Charming and brutal

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

This is an astonishing documentary that will wring your heart while it bends your mind

It's heartbreaking to see Peter O'Toole. He remains a truly great actor, but I can still remember seeing him on the big screen in "Lawrence of Arabia" and being mesmerized by his beauty. It was so mesmerizing, in fact, that Noel Coward warned him people were going to call him "Florence of Arabia." In "Venus," a 2006 film, O'Toole plays an actor, Maurice, who's not aging very gracefully but still has his wits about him. He and his good friend. another actor, Ian (Leslie Phillips) spend a lot of time together. Ian has a lot of aches and pains but now has some help - a great-niece, Jessie (Jodie Whittaker). He is rather excited about her coming to live with him, even going so far as to get her a pink towel. The next day, Ian tells Maurice that his great-niece is a horror. When Maurice meets her, though, he has a different impression. So different that he names her "Venus" after his favorite painting.Jessie in fact is a somewhat slovenly, sullen, overly made up young woman with good legs. She wants to model, so Maurice gets her a job modeling nude for an art class. Over time, a relationship develops. It's not really sexual, as Maurice is dealing with prostate cancer, and surgery has rendered him impotent, but he obviously fantasizes.As much as Jessie protests, she likes the attention. She occasionally lets him smell her neck or touch her hand, but that's it. Maurice is reliving the years when he was a true ladies' man. He left his wife (Vanessa Redgrave) with three children under the age of six for another woman, and one assumes the other woman was just a stopgap until the next one.Jessie's feelings towards Maurice evolve into something like caring, but along the way, she uses him to buy her nice things, and at one point asks him to leave his flat so she and her boyfriend can have sex. She also talks with him like a friend and seems to enjoy spending time with him. The big thing about Maurice is that he cares for her unreservedly, which is not something her parents did."Venus" is a lovely story with a great soundtrack, but the film is O'Toole's as he plays a faded actor dealing with old age and facing death. He has one last gasp at feeling young, flirting, and doing the things that young men do. And he makes us realize the saddest thing about old age. Inside you're still twenty-something. It's your body that lets you down.I've never seen Jodie Whittaker in anything else. She was so perfect in the role, I have no idea if she was acting or not. I suspect given her other credits that she was, and she did a masterful job playing a complicated young woman who hasn't quite figured out who she is yet.Leslie Phillips is also wonderful as Ian, a fussy old man for whom the very presence of his great-niece is offensive. The scene in their hangout, a coffee shop, is hilarious. He is so incensed that Maurice has her posing for art students that the two get into a fight, causing Maurice to utter my subject line. It's only one line in a script with fabulous dialogue. Vanessa Redgrave has a very small role but registers well. When doesn't she? A poignant, bittersweet film.

This is a very sad, harsh, depressing movie. Not a great one, unfortunately. Since it was labeled as "comedy", I wonder what it is exactly that we are supposed to laugh at. The pain and humiliations of old age? Being so sick that you have to pee through a catheter? Geriatric rectal exams? Prostitution and abuse? Really funny, all of it. To whom this could sound amusing, I don't know. The store scene and the confrontation with the snotty "boyfriend", which I found revolting, were both unbearable. While both Peter O'Toole and Whittaker do their best, good performance is not enough to make a good movie. The script lacks subtlety and consistency in character development, pretty much ruining everything. On the cover of the DVD, the tagline reads "You'll love her". Who are we supposed to love? This Jesse is a dumb, illiterate, mean-spirited, abusive, vicious and vulgar bitch who prostitutes herself. The sight of her constantly trying to hit O'Toole was sickening and outrageous. Few attempts to make her look human are just an example of bad writing. It is intended for us to believe that she ends up genuinely caring for the man, but that's completely implausible, inconsistent with her character. While his feelings for her are real, I'm not buying that she suddenly turned affectionate. Jesse is meant to give Maurice some sort of revelation, but she lacks the complexity to elicit anything more than raw physical attraction. As for the man played by O'Toole, the only thing you can accuse him of is poor taste in women. I mean, he falls in love/lust (whatever) with this sorry excuse for a woman, and calls her "Venus". Yeah, I guess love is blind. He's just a victim, nothing more, and he plays it masochistically, to the viewer's great discomfort. To those calling him a "perv", here's a legitimate question: why would an older man have to apologize for feeling love/attraction? It's not like he was forcing or "corrupting" her, obviously. The intimate scenes between them are uncomfortable not because he's older, but because she's using him in the most despicable ways. Peter O'Toole still has that splendid, distinctive voice, and sometimes you can catch glimpses of the gorgeous man that he was. O'Toole gives depth and warmth to his character solely by his personal charm, something that only he could pull off so elegantly. His acting is marvelous as always, although this is a painful performance to watch, given the subject matter and its misguided handling.

Cinema has had a number of stains and gems regarding the taboo of old-meets-young in sexual relationships. Unfortunately, Peter O'Toole's quirkily misplaced majestic performance seems to have been wasted on this skid mark, devoid of any genuine justification for the risqué exploits of a perverted old man desperate to swap fluids with his twenty-year-old crush. Now, this following romance movie attribute is accepted, and expected: when boy meets girl, there is initial disdain from at least one party, resulting in a rough start to the inevitable love story, reinforcing the old convention, "The more they hate each other, the more likely they'll fall in love by the end of the movie." Here you'll find the most unbelievable and ridiculous presentation of this story element that reinforces nothing of value.Famed dramatic actor Maurice Russell, in the twilight of his seventies, meets his friend's grandniece and new nurse, Jessie. He is immediately smitten by her, and just as soon brings out the alcohol in hopes she will submit. The rest of the film is plagued with sequences of lowbrow ribaldry, with some occasional heartfelt moments on the side that are overpowered by the former, if only just.After several borderline hilarious establishing scenes showing old British men with filthy mouths exchanging medications like junkies and discussing obituaries as if in a Monty Python sketch, the film takes a turn for the painfully awkward.With Venus, this awkwardness simply does not stop. Maurice charms Jessie with the gentlemanly charisma only O'Toole can convey; Jessie is treated like a princess; the princess is then groped; she retreats, tells Maurice she never wants to see him again, and he rustles out the ideal gravelling laugh of an old pervert. Repeat. Again. And again, only more rude.The intermittent scenes of Maurice with his friends, visits with his estranged old flame, and solitary moments with his thoughts seem to have heart, but we don't feel the beat. Stanley Kubrick handled this taboo sub-genre perfectly with Lolita, not exploiting a single element, and capturing our sympathy for an older man who discovers his lust and love may be confused. Venus takes the opposite route, exploiting the taboo to the point where Jessie is a character we love to hate, and Maurice turns out to be nothing more than a shameless, horny old man.All things considered, there are only two things that nearly saved it for me. One is, of course, Peter O'Toole's performance, which beautifies his character with a surprising occasional elegance. The other is an important plot element that sadly confuses the film: Maurice, after prostate surgery, is impotent. Does this mean that his licentious erotic tendencies are the result of true love? Probably not. This was, perhaps, a simple plot device inserted only for the purpose of gaining understanding for his character, and some consideration that he is more that just a horny geezer.There are many who hail this film as a near-perfect romantic comedy, as touching as it is funny, etc. This pablum is unjustified because any substance or underlying meaning to this "love story" can only be described as ludicrous. How could it not? This certainty speaks for itself, namely when Jessie touches herself and allows Maurice to smell her fluids, yet tries to slap him when he tries to lick her fingers. I am not making this up. If this does not disturb or confuse you, by all means, enjoy the movie.I hate to describe a Peter O'Toole film as trash, but I have to say Venus is a horribly miscalculated and vain excuse for a seldom-attempted type of love story. As I anticipated, it is worthy of a single viewing only for him, proving that he is among the greatest actors of his generation, and the last hope for modern theatres to be graced with silver screens once again. That being said, I just wish this film hadn't been given the same inventive value of a watered-down dime novel dragged through a muddy gutter. Putting it delicately.

During the last year I have watched well over 100 films, probably more than 200, and very few of them have pleased and stunned me as much as this small independent British film.A simple story of an unlikely relationship between an old actor near the end of his days and the young unvarnished grand-niece of a friend, it is brave, funny, truthful and moving. The clichés inherent in a tale of a dirty old man's burgeoning obsession and a shallow and somewhat damaged young woman's readiness to take advantage of it take on far greater depth than the simple scenario might indicate.Peter O'Toole, always impressive, has never been better but Jodie Whittaker, in her first major role, holds her own. Leslie Phillips, Vanessa Redgrave, and Richard Griffiths in supporting roles lend sterling support.There is laugh-out-loud humour (particularly if you are getting on in years), there is some very rough language (much of which is justified), there are some shocks and, above all, there is truth. It is never too late to learn, and both the lead characters do so.A wonderful film.